Critic Reviews

Lone Survivor, then, made me feel a lot of things. Frustration, rage, stress, exhaustion, fear, joy, hope, pride, sadness, wonder. Four hours and twenty-six minutes – plus some trial-and-error-based change. But this game's going to stick with me much, much longer than that, and there are few higher forms of praise I can offer.

I realised I’ve lavished quite a lot of praise on what might appear to be quite a simple wee indie game. To me though, this little indie game is absolutely full of personality, great design and originality; just what is missing from the modern Silent Hill games. What I’m saying is you don’t need to keep buying Silent Hill games in the hope that Konami will finally release one as good as the originals. Someone else has already done that, and his name is Jasper Byrne.

Lone Survivor isn't just one of those interesting art games, though, it's a proper video game, one with mechanics and systems and gameplay backing up its copious ideas and abject nastiness. It's one of the freshest, boldest and most rewarding entrants in a genre many had left for dead, and anyone pining for a true Silent Hill experience needs to experience what Byrne has to offer. Lone Survivor deserves to be massive, because it might just be the most interesting thing I've played all year.

Lone Survivor is easily among the best survival horror games that I've ever played, a feat that's truly remarkable when one considers the 2D perspective and visual limitations. Demonstrating that a commitment to ambience and art direction trumps technical superiority, this guaranteed indie classic manages to provoke -- and sometimes even frighten -- as much as the genre's most lauded entries. Its depressing premise, eccentric characters, and engrossing narrative bolster the solid survival gameplay to create a journey that's sure to stick with players for a very long time.

Clearly, Byrne draws heavy inspiration from Silent Hill — most blatantly, he borrows from Akira Yamaoka’s soundscape of scraping machinery and gnashing teeth throughout Lone Survivor. More importantly, the game’s best narrative trick — again borrowed from Silent Hill — is its mystery, leaving itself open to interpretation and examination. Who was the Man Who Wears A Box? The Seated Figure? The White-faced Man? Who was the brown-haired girl I held hands with in my dreams? The answers aren’t overtly clear, but I can’t wait to play again to find out.

Regardless of how you approach it, Lone Survivor is one of those games that remain on your mind long after you've finished it. Even if you don't share my predilection for nightmares, you'll find that Lone Survivor's masterful dedication to ambiance and setting far outweighs any concerns about its retro aesthetic. Embrace it on its own terms, and you'll find a game that comes the closest a survival horror game has come to replicating the experience of the first Silent Hill game in recent years; indeed, in some ways, it's even better.

Lone Survivor makes a wonderful horror game and I can’t understand the criticism of some people who said it’s not really about survival and it wasn’t scary enough. I’ve been playing games for some time now and it’s hard for a game to surprise or scare me, but I have to say this one did a great job and I recommend it to everyone who likes a little adrenaline boost from time to time.

It's true that Lone Survivor owes a lot to the atmosphere of early Silent Hill, and there are a few thematic nods to David Lynch's '90s weirdo drama, Twin Peaks. But beneath them lies an intricate and unique game that takes the best of old-style survival horror and warps it into something all of its own. It's brave, uncompromising, and a little bit knowing - and, crucially, it's got more than enough substance to back up its style.

All that aside, Lone Survivor is solid. It delivers in all the areas a horror game should. You'll feel fear, loneliness, desperation and those of you who aren't familiar with the Silent Hill formula will also be intrigued by the narrative.

Eventually, however, hope begins to take root amid the delirium, and it’s a more than satisfying restitution for the struggle. Lone Survivor is an uncompromising game - perhaps braver than it is strictly enjoyable - but without that bitter pill it wouldn’t be able to offer that feeling of transcendence. Its clumsiness of presentation and lack of explanation might be partly excused as aesthetic choices that enrich even as they frustrate. But perhaps its truest accolade is in returning the horror of survival itself to the survival horror genre.